Many children living in inner-city London do not have many opportunities to explore green areas around them. Here at Jubilee we use outdoor learning as a vehicle to enhance the children’s learning in a different environment. It is important for all learners to feel and understand that not all learning happens in the classroom and that the curriculum can be taught outside. Outdoor learning has enormous benefits in terms of: improving pupil’s health and well being, developing self confidence, resilience and social skills and developing a lifelong love of, and awareness of how to care for, the environment.
We are fortunate to have a number of beautiful green outdoor spaces at Jubilee. These include a forest school area, the Jubilee Community Garden, our Secret Garden, a sensory garden, a tree bank, herb and vegetable patches and an orchard.
Having recently won the Lambeth Best School Garden of the Year 2019, we have a very active gardening club who help maintain and promote the gardens within our school.
Children within the Early Years setting have the opportunity to grow and harvest different fruits and vegetables to have used them to make delicious soups and salads! The Sensory Garden offers Jubilee children the chance to use a fantastic mud kitchen and explore their senses with different sights, smells, textures and sounds within the garden. Our Jubilee ‘tree patrollers’ help to take care of our tree bank, which was planted by each class in 2017.
The Secret Garden is our hidden Jubilee oasis which sees the children within the school grow a wide range of fruits and vegetables. These are sometimes given to the school kitchen for the chefs to cook and the children to taste what they have grown. We also have a bug hotel which the children built so they have an idea about habitats and the importance of small creatures in our environment.
At Jubilee we are also lucky to be a part of the Windmill Cluster Outdoor Learning Project, in which the children have the opportunity to develop new skills, work as a team with other children and support their confidence in learning in a natural environment. On their return from these sessions the children are encouraged to share what they have learnt with the rest of the school and become part of a schools’ team of ‘Outdoor Learning Ambassadors’.
